BRIGDON
1. Am. Gard. 11:244, 378. 1890. 2. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 32. 1899. 3. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:340. 1903. 4. Waugh Am. Peach Orch. 199. 1913.
Garfield. 5. Can. Hort. 26:441, fig. 2665. 1903.
Brigdon is a local variety which possibly local pride puts too much in evidence in assigning it a place among the major varieties in The Peaches of New York. Still, it belongs with the Crawfords, aristocrats among peaches, and this is enough to give it standing in a home collection at least. In tree and fruit it is similar to and a worthy rival of Early Crawford and has the same two fatal faults to bar it from commercial plantations—the trees are capricious as to soils and are often unproductive. On the other hand, a character of the tree to commend it to the amateur is that it is one of the least susceptible of all peach-trees to leaf-curl. The variety is well known only in western New York and is going out in this region.
Brigdon originated more than a quarter-century ago in Cayuga County, New York, and has been grown since more or less extensively on the shores of Seneca Lake. The name Garfield was given to this peach by some one but why or when does not appear. The variety was added to the American Pomological Society's recommended list of fruits in 1899, a distinction it has since held.
BRIGDON
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, open-topped, hardy, unproductive; trunk thick; branches stocky, rather smooth, reddish-brown overlaid with light ash-gray; branchlets slender, with tendency to branch, long, olive-green overlaid with dark red, smooth, glabrous, with numerous large and small, inconspicuous, irregularly shaped and often raised lenticels, the expansion of which causes a cracking of the bark.
Leaves five and seven-eighths inches long, one and five-eighths inches wide, folded upward, oval to obovate-lanceolate, thin; upper surface dark green, rugose; lower surface light grayish-green; margin finely serrate, tipped with dark glands; petiole nearly one-half inch long, glandless or with one to four small, globose, greenish-yellow glands variable in position.
Flower-buds oblong-conic, pubescent, somewhat shrunken, usually free; blossoms open in mid-season.
Fruit matures in mid-season; two and one-half inches long, two and three-fourths inches wide, round-oval to cordate, compressed, bulged beak-like near the apex; cavity deep, medium to wide, abrupt or flaring, often colored with red; suture shallow, becoming deep near the apex; apex roundish, with a pointed or recurved, mamelon tip; color greenish-yellow changing to pale orange-yellow, speckled and splashed with dull red which often extends over nearly the whole surface; pubescence long, thick, woolly; skin thin, somewhat tough, separates from the pulp only when fully ripe; flesh yellow, juicy, coarse, firm, tender, sweet, mild, pleasant flavored; very good in quality; stone semi-free to free, one and one-fourth inches long, seven-eighths inch wide, oval, decidedly bulged on one side, with a rather long and slightly curved point, with pitted and grooved surfaces; ventral suture deeply furrowed along the edges, medium in width; dorsal suture grooved, slightly winged.